How much rock music do you find danceable?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

This came up in passing on another thread, but I don't have the exact quote in front of me. I have never found that most rock music particularly inspires me to dance. The early stuff that has a strong swing feel, yes, I can see that. But how much since then? I found some punk/new wave stuff fairly danceable, but overall I wouldn't say that most rock makes me want to dance. If you think rock makes good dance music (as in music for dancing), can you give some examples?

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Dancing to the Smiths is one of my favorite activities.

― Mitchell (Mitchell), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Lots! If I gave examples I would be here all day long. or, um, longer than usual anyway.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

It's always much more danceable live. When you feel it rattling your organs and what not. The rest of the time it's 'bounceable'

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:15 (twenty-one years ago)

bo derek to thread.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

None of it.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

If you can't dance to "Girls Got Rhythm" by AC/DC you're dead.

There's a fuckload of a lot more swing in that than on many of the tracks on this early house comp I just listened to.

― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll dance to anything.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:21 (twenty-one years ago)

None of it

Wedding dances in the Midwest have taught me that this in an untrue statement. Esp. most classic rock.

*puts on Metal Machine Music and waits for Barry to bust a move*

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha, you must be going to better weddings than me.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

14%

― ddb, Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I find rock to be a lot more danceable than dance music.

― maypang (maypang), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:26 (twenty-one years ago)

ddb OTM

Ha, you must be going to better weddings than me.

I'm from a small town. Lots of people enjoy a drink there. I was at one last weekend and saw lots of folks dancing. A gaggle of young women (friends of the bride) were shaking it to "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:27 (twenty-one years ago)

'foggy notion' by the velvets is one of the only songs that never ever (ever) (ever) fails to get me to dance

though I suspect I'm a bit strange in this regard

― mallory ahern (chicago, now!), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:36 (twenty-one years ago)

A lot of the time when I Dance to Rock it's in a 'I am dancing to this because I like the song and am drunk and happy to recognise it' rather than because it's a song that's actually particularly conducive to dancing. I mean, I like the Smiths but unless I'm beered up I don't really feel any need to dance to them because it's like, the Smiths, whereas say 'Feel Good Hit Of The Fall' by !!! has a certain 'this song is for going batshit to' built into it.

― ferg (Ferg), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

i have to two step to lots of it, so i get tired pretty quick. anything with a good beat though - hot hot heat's "bandages" is one of my favorite songs to dance to from last year.

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I think maypang is OTM. But I also think that you have to listen to different parts in order to get into it. I have a friend who we used to force to come out a britpop club in LA. She only listens to hip hop so she dreaded going out because she couldnt dance to anything. I also feel that alot of dance music you cant really dance to, per se, but maybe I'm not paying attention to the right parts.

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:39 (twenty-one years ago)

More of it before disco scared drummers away from using 16th notes than after disco scared drummers away from using 16th notes. Though there are exceptions, of course -- Guns N Roses's first album is better dance music than just about any "techno" ever made. And there's way more danceable rock now than there was ten years ago or possibly even 20 years ago (though definitely not more than there was 30, 40, or 50 years ago.)

― chuck, Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Finding Guns n Roses danceable puzzles me. I can't see myself dancing to "Welcome to the Jungle" I don't think.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:56 (twenty-one years ago)

*puts on Metal Machine Music and waits for Barry to bust a move*

With beatless music I usually just sway. I've never tried with MMM, though, but it sounds like something to try.

Re: the "I Touch Myself" wedding story, why can't I get invited to weddings like that.

xpost maypang and bill, danceability depends on one thing -- tempo. A rock song at 120 BPM is just as danceable as a house track at 120 BPM. However, the house song is likely easier to dance to because the beats and off beats are so obvious that even a klutz can pick up the rhythm. For that reason, I think rock dancing takes a bit more coordination, but it is certainly not inherently less danceable.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:58 (twenty-one years ago)

this is one of those "how do you dance" kind of questions, too. holding your arms out and twirling like a helicopter is dancing, too. i guess it'd be easier to do that to forcefield than to house music, so forcefield is "dancier" than house in some respects.

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 4 March 2004 22:58 (twenty-one years ago)

i can dance to anything

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:00 (twenty-one years ago)

But I bet you can see AXL ROSE dancing to "Welcome to the Jungle", can't you Rockist? (Still, the best dance songs on *Appetite* are probably "Rocket Queen" and "Mr. Brownstone". The former's got a lot in common with Donna Summer, by the way. Though *Appetite* and *Bad Girls* are pretty much the same damn album, when you get down to it.)

― chuck, Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:00 (twenty-one years ago)

The Doors' 'LA Woman'

― pete s, Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:01 (twenty-one years ago)

country is way underrated as a danceable form of music. it's always dancey in a country sort of way, and now sometimes it's also danceable in a dance music sort of way (post Shania et al)...

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:01 (twenty-one years ago)

AXL ROSE dancing to "Welcome to the Jungle"

he does a pretty good roger rabbit in that video

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Axl's snake move is awesome dancing!!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:04 (twenty-one years ago)

NO - he just has an awesome torso.

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:05 (twenty-one years ago)

NO - he just has an awesome torso

vahid, I respectfully disagree with your main argument, but you make some excellent points about Axl's torso (although today that might not be quite as true as it once was).

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:06 (twenty-one years ago)

It's been a while since I've seen any video of him, but yes, I guess he kind of thrashed around. I don't remember clearly.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I find Killing Joke highly danceable (they were initially obsessed with "disco rhythms").

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Some other danceable rock stuff I regularly play during my DJ sets: Swingin Medallions 'Double Shot of My Baby's Love', John Cougar Mellencamp (esp. his Hombres cover, but his drummer Aranoff could TOTALLY swing), Rockets 'Oh Well', REO Speedwagon 'Golden Country," '70s Aerosmith (esp 'Chip Away at the Stone' for some reason), Nazareth, Kix, Cinderella 'Gypsy Road,' Herman Brood and his Wild Romance, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, Boomtown Rats, Tommy Roe 'Dizzy,' Osmonds 'One Bad Apple'/'Crazy Horses'/'Yo Yo', Police 'Voices in My Head,' J Geils (esp 'Flamethrower'), John Stewart 'Gold,' Night 'Hot Summer Night,' Garland Jeffreys 'Wild in the Streets,' Human Beinz 'Nobody But Me,' the Stooges, MC5 (second album mostly), Lynyrd Skynyrd, Babe Ruth, Rick Derringer 'Rock n Roll Hootchie Koo,' Slade, Suzi Quatro, Spin Doctors 'Two Princes,' Steve Miller Band 'Take the Money and Run," shit I could go on forever...

― chuck, Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

this thread is kinda custom made for you chuck.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Chuck, do people dance to that stuff because they know it, or because it is danceable? For instance, I don't think "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo" is a very danceable song (compared to the others in your list), but it's bound to fill the floor because it's a well-known song and people like hearing it at clubs. If you played a similar-sounding track that wasn't as well known then would things be different?

I've observed this quite often, a great example being Tool. Trying to dance to them is a horrible chore, but in a room full of Tool fans, they'll figure out a way.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

"Rock n Roll Hootchie Koo" sounds and feels like dance music to me; the beat is closer to disco than to, say, Tool or Metallica or Creed or R.E.M. Yeah, some people will dance to anything. But *I* won't. I'm really CHOOSEY when it comes to what I'll dance to!

― chuck, Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:43 (twenty-one years ago)

(M@tt, actually, this thread was inspired by one of Chuck's comments on another thread, but I didn't want to try to paraphrase and was too lazy to track it down.)

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

People don't necessarily always dance when I DJ, though. Though I look for things that they COULD dance to, if they WANTED to. I left out Led Zep and Roxy Music and "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard" by Paul Simon and "Susnpot Baby" by Bob Seger and "Free For All" by Ted Nugent, not to mention Mitch Ryder -- I mean, these have rhythms rooted in r&b or Latin music; it's really not that hard to figure out. I play them back to back with funk or soul or disco or Latin or New Orleans r&b or old-school hip-hop or German electro-pop songs, and it makes perfect sense! Even ask Electrifyin' Mojo!!

― chuck, Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Blame MTV or whatever but I have no idea how to dance to "Me And Julio Down By The School Yard."

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 4 March 2004 23:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't pretty much anything with a beat "danceable"? Anyway, people are dancing at every rock show I've ever been to.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah...I saw people dancing recently at one of those Wolf Eyes/Black Dice-inspired improv noise freakout bands

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe "danceable" isn't the right word. All I know is that I love to dance, but most rock music has never made me feeling like dancing.

But Chuck, I don't mean this in a real snarky way, but if people aren't dancing when you DJ doesn't that say something about the selections and how much they invite dancing, or is it that it something people go to more to socialize and hang out than to dance?

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a feeling that most people who wouldn't be able to dance to most of those songs wouldn't know how to dance to '60s soul music (or maybe even funk or disco) either, but maybe I'm wrong. (Conversely, I find lots of techno music, not to mention lots of Grateful Dead/Phish style jam band hipie music, completely impossible to dance to myself. And I hate WATCHING how people flail around aimlessly to that stuff; they usually strike me as completely graceless and clumsy. But different strokes, you know? I can't dance to salsa myself; it seems too much like ballroom dancing to me -- like something you have to LEARN how to do. But dancing to rock and soul stuff like the songs I list above comes completely naturally to me; I don't even have to think about it! Obviously if I was 15 years younger and lived all my life in England, or 15 years older and lived all my life in Cuba, I'd think differently.)

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:07 (twenty-one years ago)

STEVE MILLER BAND - "SWINGTOWN" = 1000%

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:07 (twenty-one years ago)

esp. the moog solo.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't generally DJ at dance clubs, Rockist; I DJ at BARS. When I've DJed at parties, playing the same songs, people almost ALWAYS dance, so maybe I wasn't being clear. (And not just my friends, either; I got hired to spin at some Russian girls' 27th or so birthday party a couple months ago, after she'd caught me DJing in a bar and liked all the Boney M songs, and people were dancing to my stuff all night! They kept asking me how come MORE DJs don't play the mix of stuff I do!) (It's because most DJs are chickenshits, of course. But I didn't tell them that.)

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

You may be right. Even though I love to dance, I don't do too well dancing to a lot of Motown oldies that seem to get most people moving, so maybe I'm just trying to pretend that my own preferences are in fact the norm (which, I should know by now, they aren't).

Now disco, I seem to remember dancing to that a lot when I was a kid. I don't think what I was doing bore much resemblance to what was happening in clubs, but I was dancing in some form.

Blues is another type of music that I find way less dance-inviting than rock. A lot of people like to dance to the blue (and it's one of the types of music traditionally used in west coast swing), but it doesn't make me want to dance.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean, it's fun to TRICK people who are dancing. You go from, say, EPMD into Tommy Roe or Steve Miller, which start out with totally hip-hop dance beats, and they don't know what hit them! But they keep dancing, without even thinking about it, if they're drunk enough.

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I can only dance to the ol 1-2-3-4. Is "Julio" in a different time signature or something? For someone reason it sounds really choppy in my head compared to the other songs and genres mentioned.

I just DJed last night at a bar myself. Lots of people wanted to dance - I played a lot of familiar '80s stuff along with the music nerd obscurities but the bar is really non-conducive to it spacewise, you're always in somebody's way. Plus bands were doing soundchecks during a lot of it and WAY loud too.

Rock music I guess I considered danceable from my set: Def Leppard "Photograph," The Faint "Worked Up So Sexual," Michael Jackson "Beat It," Flock Of Seagulls "Telecommunications," David Bowie "Scary Monsters," Pretenders "Talk Of The Town," Modern Lovers "I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms," AC/DC "Rock'n'Roll Damnation," Duran Duran "Planet Earth," stuff like that.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't two-step or cotton eyed joe for shit, either, for whatever it's worth (i've tried plenty of times, believe me), even though lots of country music SOUNDS really danceable to me. Mainly I think I just don't like dancing where you have to know STEPS!

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:17 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah. it's always hard to dance to country or big band because you can't fake it....I always like seeing some of my relatives break it down to some 50s oldies...like regular joe guys that grew up back then could ALL really dance well! It was like a life skill like being able to change your own oil on your car.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't change my own oil either : (

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:21 (twenty-one years ago)

People who grew up in the '80s and early '90s like dancing to a lot of stuff (industrial, Duran Duran, INXS, Nine Inch Nails, Chili Peppers, Tribe Called Qwest, De La Soul, the Rapture, the Liars, etc) that strikes me as pretty stiff, too. It doesn't ROCK enough to make me dance. Or something. But I suppose it rocks the people who are dancing to it. Many of whom are my very good friends!

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyway, I'm probably just repeating all my usual boring dogma here, obviously, when I should be getting work done so I can go see David Banner and Chingy tonight. Still, everybody should read what me and Frank Kogan and Michael Freedberg and Simon Reynolds and Tricia Romano say about disco, dancing (and writing about it) on this link below, if you haven't done so already:

http://www.rockcritics.com/Disco_Crits_Intro1.html

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Chingy caused a riot when he performed in the Gallery, in Philadelphia. Keep that in mind.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I should go wash dishes or something, so I can do some laundry.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:27 (twenty-one years ago)

>>I can only dance to the ol 1-2-3-4. Is "Julio" in a different time signature or something? For someone reason it sounds really choppy in my head compared to the other songs and genres mentioned.<<

It's got a Brazilian rhythm, I think. Though rhythm geography experts might want to correct me on that. Sounds real good next to Millie Small or R.B. Greaves or Musical Youth or Jorge Ben or Kid Creole & the Coconuts or Hot Chocolate's more reggaefied stuff or "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac, either way.

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that's a good tune to dance to, but you have to have some pretty good South American moves, like you see on Telemundo sometimes.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"sometimes"... :-P

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:37 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah that's not monolithic enough for me to figure out. but disco is the shit. and you really look badass in this town if you know how to dance to eigths (or god, sixteenths) rather than just the two and four. or if you're 6'4" with a gut you look frikkin' absurd.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:40 (twenty-one years ago)

You can kind of do a very fast samba to it ("Julio")--I just tried--but I'm not sure it's a "legit" samba, or something else. It sounds like they were just listening to a lot of Brazilian music at the time.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 00:47 (twenty-one years ago)

So I was right, hah! And probably part of what I like about it is the "very fast" part!

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 00:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I would like to say, no that's really the rhythm of a small tribe of Venezuelan mountain people, but I think you're right.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

about 10%

"TEN PER CENT OF SOMETHING (TEN PERCENT OF THAT SOMETHING!) IT BEATS FOUR HUNDRED PERCENT! OF NOTHING AT ALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That's my jam right there.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 5 March 2004 02:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Nobody believes there are any true dichotomies any more. More later, maybe.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Friday, 5 March 2004 04:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Black Metal is very danceable.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 5 March 2004 05:43 (twenty-one years ago)

You know what's an unbelievably great dance song is Three Dog Night's version of "Black and White."

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 5 March 2004 14:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I was being a little facetious when I said "none of it", but not much. I've danced to rock music, and I'll happily do it to Guns n' Roses or Led Zeppelin. In general though, even if it is danceable, it doesn't MAKE me want to dance. Head-nodding maybe, but the groove just isn't really the ass-shaking kind.

I love dancing to hip-hop, r&b, funk, etc., and (unsurprisngly) nothing makes me want to dance like New Orleans brass band music. I think it's is the tempo, it's about double-time from hip-hop usually, not too slow and not too fast. I agree with Chuck about Latin music...I'm feeling it, but I don't feel "qualified" to dance to it (unless I'm alone).

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 5 March 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I've danced to more "rock" music in the past year or two than I have to any house or techno DJs. Granted, I'm not much of a dancer (I like doing it, but I'm generally too self-conscious unless I've had a few beers in me), but the Dirtbombs, Mr. Quintron and Shonen Knife all inspired me to dance at their shows, and I'm probably forgetting some others. I think the last time I danced to "dance" music was to a 2-step set in NYC or a Theo Parrish set at a street fair in Detroit a couple years ago.

― Jeff Sumner (Jeff Sumner), Friday, 5 March 2004 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Is INXS's "Need You Tonight" rock music? That song shakes my tailfeather.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 5 March 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

The bassline (or maybe guitar line?) in "Need You Tonight" is, I think, the same as the one in "Nighttime in the Switching Yard" by Warren Zevon "Shakedown Street" (which actually IS a pretty good dance song--it's their attempt at disco!) by the Grateful Dead (the latter of which I heard on a COUNTRY station from Allentown PA a couple weeks ago, within a half hour after the same station played the long 15 minute or whatever version of "Rappers Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. I'm not making this up; it was a benefit for a children's hospital or something. The day before, a DJ on the same station was scratching a riff from "Sweet Home Alabama" into "The Legend of Wooley Swamp" by the Charlie Daniels Band, and it was one of the funkiest things I've ever heard on any radio station, ever. A few days before that I was watching CMT and there was a tape of Toby Keith collaborating on stage with Aerosmith and Run DMC during a version of "I Wanna Talk about Me" at his super bowl party!)

I still don't like INXS much, though. They get the basslines right sometimes, but there's something really fucking cold and thin and antiseptic and non-rock about their sound. I can't explain it. (Same problem as Chili Peppers, I guess: funk is MORE than just a bassline.)

"Black and White" by Three Dog Night has a Latin rhythm underneath, just like "Magic Bus" by the Who, "Hush" by Deep Purple, etc. (I have a few chapters about all this stuff in both of my books, by the way.)

― chuck, Friday, 5 March 2004 17:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Pretty much all of it that I like.

― mei (mei), Friday, 5 March 2004 18:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Ditto mei. If I like it, I'll find a way. Shit, even Where Is My Mind? tends to fill dancefloors every time I've heard it played.

― Chris Jones (Crackity Jones), Friday, 5 March 2004 22:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Is jumping around ok?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 5 March 2004 22:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Only if you flail your arms.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 March 2004 23:41 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.